Christmas Over The Water At Constellations

On Saturday 23rd December, Over The Water held their Christmas Concert featuring The Luminelles, Two Black Sheep & Charmed String Quartet. It was particularly Christmassy with it being so late in the season and only two days before Christmas Day and Constellations was dressed up beautifully!

The concert was full to the brim with Christmas cheer along with moving solos and lush harmonies!

The first half was a celebration and a revue of what has been an exciting year for all of the acts performing. The Luminelles opened the afternoon, singing Sgt Pepper/With A Little Help From My Friends, which we put together originally for the opening day of the ‘Sgt Pepper At 50′ festival earlier this year. They then went on to perform Runnin’ and Empire State of Mind from their repertoire and Annie’s Song which they learnt for Dionne and my wedding in July!

Two Black Sheep then took to their stage with their string quartet and they performed lush arrangements of their own songs along with Fix You by Coldplay and One Day Like This by Elbow.

Over The Water then took to the stage to perform an upbeat set from their repertoire which they have built up over the course of this year. Their set included Kiss From A Rose which they learnt on Pitch Battle, with solos from Claire Cooper-Shone, Nina Cox and Dionne McHugh. They also performed Thinking Out Loud, Don’t Let Waterfalls Go Diggity (featuring Jan Ross & Molly Daniel) and a medley of Sweet Dreams, Human and Rhythm Is A Dancer.

The Luminelles then returned to the stage, joining Over The Water to finish off the first half with a bang. This formidable combination of choirs sang Symphony with solos from Amy Heywood and Lauren Heywood and Ain’t No Mountain High Enough with solos from Molly Jackson, Arden Williams and Joanne Steel.

All the performers returned to the stage for the second half, which was a full-out Christmas celebration! Full to the brim with festive arrangements, the Christmas spirit took over the whole room!

There were lots of standout solo moments including Jess Hynes leading Silver Bells, Poppy Smailes, Imogen Green and Kelly Nsutebu in Do You Hear What I Hear and Mary McCombs taking the emotional lead on Real Love. Len Higginson revived his ‘Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire’ with the string quartet which was a special moment and Amy and Rob performed their traditional ‘Fairytale Of New York’. Our final two songs were the Anglican Cathedral finale pieces that we had performed earlier in the week with a number of other choirs. A number of members from some of these choirs very kindly came and supported us in the audience and we invited them up to join us at the end of the concert along with my mum on piano which was another special moment.

Following this, we performed an encore of Happy Xmas (War Is Over), led by Two Black Sheep.

Big thanks to Rob Chalmers on guitar, Ian Davies on bass guitar, Ieaun on cajon and the string quartet which featured Wendy Dickinson and Beth Watson on violin, Helen Measures on viola and Vicky Mutch on cello. Our very own Yvonne Sharples presented the concert with aplomb! Finally, a massive thank you to Dionne who did all the organising behind the scenes to create an amazing and memorable event.

The full setlists are below –

First Half

The Luminelles

Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band/With A Little Help
Runnin’
Annie’s Song
Empire State Of Mind

Little Drummer Boy/Peace On Earth
Carol Of The Bells/Somewhere In My Memory
Silver Bells (Jess lead vocal)
The Christmas Song (Len Solo)
Fairytale Of New York (Amy & Rob lead)Do You Hear What I Hear
Real Love (Mary lead vocal)
This Christmas
Walking In The Air
Santa’s Coming For Us